Witness describes ‘complete chaos’ after teen shot at bush party

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Reece Davidson had a bad feeling about the man dressed in black and wearing a COVID mask who was hanging around the dying embers of the bonfire at a southwest London bush party.

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The gathering of young people on July 31, 2021, had largely broken up by 12:30 a.m., when Davidson, 22, said he spied the tall, skinny man he believed was Black, who was standing away from the fire and close to the woods. The man was wearing the hoodie, mask and a fanny pack that draped over his shoulder and across his body.

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“It was black and I know he had his hand in it and that seemed pretty concerning to me,” said Davidson, who was testifying at the second-degree murder trial of Carlos Guerra Guerra.

Though he couldn’t see what was in the small bag, “I thought he had a small gun in there,” he said. His concern was there had been a tense moment earlier and “people may have been coming.”

The party had mostly good vibes, except for the argument Davidson saw over a thrown drink during which a woman he didn’t know threatened his friends that she was going to call her brother-in-law.

The man, he said, was “just standing there very awkwardly,” but Davidson also saw him speak to two women, “who definitely knew him…. To me, it looked like he was looking for people.”

Davidson said he turned to his friends Blake Hayward and Kyle Clark and said, “Don’t make it obvious, but there’s a weird guy behind us. I think we should leave.”

A few minutes later, there was a gunshot and Davidson and his pals were trying desperately to help their friend, Josue Silva, 18, who had collapsed on the path into the woods and would later die from a single gunshot to the abdomen.

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Davidson’s dramatic testimony Friday capped off the seventh week of the Superior Court jury trial where there already has been some unexpected twists.

Guerra Guerra, 23, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder in the death of Silva, a Western University student, and not guilty to assault with a weapon on Logan Marshall.

On Thursday, after a week of not hearing any evidence, the jury was told Emily Altmann, 22, who had been co-accused with Guerra Guerra, had been excused from the trial and the jury was not to speculate why.

The jury already had heard Altmann called Guerra Guerra for backup after she had been involved in a heated argument over a thrown drink at the party.

Davidson, who was 18 at the time, testified through questions from assistant Crown attorney Kristina Mildred that he went to the party on Pack Road near Lambeth with longtime friends, including Marshall and Silva.

He estimated that there were about 80 people there, a mix of current and former Saunders, St. Thomas Aquinas and Medway secondary school students. His group separated to mingle and at some point, Davidson heard people yelling at each other about a thrown drink with Marshall and his girlfriend at the time, Isabella Restrepo, and Silva.

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Davidson walked over to stand with his friends and recalled one woman screaming she was going to call her brother-in-law, as she was picked up and carried out of the party by her boyfriend. It was over in about 30 seconds.

“After that altercation settled, we all went back to what we were doing before,” he said.

Davidson said at no time did he ever see any weapons at the party or on his friends. He never heard anyone even talk about them.

When the party was clearing out, he believed Marshall and Silva left. After he saw the masked man, Davidson said he and friend Cooper Kelly split from the group by the fire to leave.

He and Kelly started walking toward the exit when “we heard a bang with screaming. I could see smoke and I could see a lot flashlights running into the woods.”

Davidson joined Kelly, Hayward and Clark back at the fire, “and I said, ‘I think someone just got shot.’”

Hayward and Clark dismissed his fears, insisting it must have been a firework. The four of them jogged down the path to see what happened and found Silva surrounded by a group of people.

“He was pale; very, very pale,” Davidson said, but initially they didn’t see any bleeding and thought he was just “very drunk” because he was stumbling, couldn’t stand and couldn’t speak properly.

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The crowd was saying he had been shot by a firework. Silva kept saying he needed to urinate and “’I’m fine, I’m fine’, but we could tell he wasn’t fine.’”

Silva collapsed in the bushes. When Davidson and friends lifted him up, there was a pool of blood in the grass. Around him, people were screaming “and everyone was in a complete state of shock… It was complete chaos.”

People had started to call 911. Clark took his shirt off and wrapped it around Silva’s wound, while Davidson and friend Matt Swan went to Pack Road to direct the paramedics to the scene.

He said even the paramedics, based on 911 calls that “some teenager got hit with a firework,” were “kind of laughing,” until they saw how serious the situation was. The path was blocked by a locked metal gate making it impossible for the ambulance to get to Silva. His stretcher had to be lifted over the gate before he could be transported.

First responders directed everyone to stay by the road. Davidson said he gave a brief statement to the police once Silva was taken away. Then, the friends walked to their Lambeth homes.

Davidson said he went to Marshall’s house the next morning after Marshall called to say Silva had died. “The room was very silent. Everyone was in denial, no one was saying much at all… I think everyone couldn’t believe what just happened.”

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Davidson gave a lengthier police statement at Marshall’s house. In cross-examination, Guerra Guerra’s defence lawyer Ricardo Golec pointed out Davidson didn’t mention in his first statement, made an hour after the shooting, that he saw the masked man. That detail was included after he had gathered with all his friends.

“I believe I was an 18-year-old, shocked and confused and scared, so that’s why I believe my statement at that time wasn’t very detailed,” he said and added he told the police exactly what he saw in his second statement.

Mildred pointed out in re-examination Marshall never said anything about the thrown-drink argument in his first statement either.

“I was definitely scared. I was uncertain (Silva) was going to make it. I was confused about what was going to happen. I believe I was in a complete state of shock,” Davidson said.

The trial continues Monday.

jsims@postmedia.com

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